BOTANICA: A Tarot Deck about the Language of Flowers

Production Update! Smoother sailing...
about 4 years ago – Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 02:19:43 AM

Happy New Year, dearest Botanists!

We hope your 2021 is flowering already -- at least moreso than the fallow fields of the past year. We don't have much new to tell you, but I thought I'd update you all on our production process.

For the first time in forever, we don't have any new problems to report! Our reprint went smoothly, and all the books and other rewards are currently en route to our warehouses in Philadelphia, Tennessee and New Jersey, scheduled to arrive here by mid-February. Then shipping can begin!

We're still on schedule for the timeline we quoted in our previous email, with fulfillment taking place in February and March. We're really trying to push towards the earlier part of that two month span -- we still intend to ship all of our physical rewards in the month of February, and we think it can be done. 

As far as digital rewards: the PDF format rewards have gone out via email. If you haven't received your PDF rewards, please message us privately on Kickstarter or email us at [email protected] and we'll send them along. (Please don't comment here -- we don't want to post your email address or private info publicly.) We're still working on our various video rewards, and intend to have those out to you in February.

Barring any more unforeseen delays, you will have your decks and other rewards in time to greet the vernal equinox.

We're so grateful for your extraordinary patience, generous support, and wonderful sense of fellow-feeling for the entire BOTANICA community. This entire process has been such a magical experience, and that's thanks to all of you.

Here's to growing in 2021!

Josh, Maëlle and Kevin

Holiday Update (guest starring: a poll!)
about 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 11:02:21 PM

Hi friends!

Just sending a little holiday cheer your way, and dropping in for a quick update.

Printing is now finished, and all the decks and other rewards are being loaded into carts and onto pallets to depart for our warehouse by the end of this year, to arrive in February. We're still looking at the same timeline to fulfill physical rewards in February and March 2021. We will keep you up to date as early as possible if there are any further delays!

The PDF-format digital rewards will go out by the end of this month, so there should be lots of art for you to look at to tide you over for the next couple of months!

On that tip, we could use your advice about something. Part of our digital package includes five high res printable cards. Which cards would you all like to see included? Here's the list of options we're looking at. You can vote at the link HERE, or by clicking on the image below.

Select up to five cards! We'll make our final selections before the end of the year, and send out digital rewards (exempting the videos, which we're still working on) before the ball drops!

Thank you everyone! Please let us know if you have any questions or comments or literally anything else that you feel like sharing. Much love and merriment!

Josh, Maëlle and Kevin

Holiday Cards! ...and a fulfillment update!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 02:55:50 PM

Hello friends!

Just a quick update today to let you know that our reprint is going well, and the cards should be en route to our warehouses very soon. Our most recent schedule is still looking good, and we think it's realistic to fulfill this campaign in February 2021.

Because the holidays are approaching fast (can someone explain to us how it's suddenly December 5th?), we thought this would be a good moment to send out our digital and print-at-home holiday gift cards! In lieu of having actual decks in hand, here's something you can give to folks you're buying Botanica for to let them know that something wonderful is on the way.

• DIGITAL CARDS
• PRINTABLE CARDS

For the printable card, we've included crop marks for you to trim it. Please use the thickest paper you have/your printer can handle, and print at 100% scale, at the highest possible setting ("photo quality" or "high quality" on most printers). They should be printed on letter-sized 8.5x11" paper.

We're also hard at work on digital rewards! We're hoping to have all the PDF-format rewards sent out in the next month, so stay tuned for more info about those shortly. Some of the other digital rewards (mainly the video-format ones) will take a little bit longer, and will probably go out along with the physical rewards in February.

Thank you, dear Botanists! Hope you're all safe and warm as the frost takes hold.

Josh, Maëlle and Kevin

Schedule Update, and New Pics!
about 4 years ago – Fri, Nov 20, 2020 at 11:27:30 PM

Floral friends,

A quick update for you, as well as some more production pics. We're continuing to make progress on this project, and things are shaping up nicely! But since we've had some follow up questions after our last update, I want to make sure everyone is clear about the schedule. As previously mentioned, due to some COVID-related and non-COVID-related delays, we won’t be able to deliver by the holidays. We’ll take some time here to explain how this happened, and why we believe we’ve made the right choice in a challenging situation.

As we all know, the pandemic hit China first, and this forced our printing partner to shut down their presses for several weeks early on, as well as forcing their US-based employees to work from home. The organizational shift on their end has resulted in a series of unfortunate errors, both internally and with their subcontractors for some of the objects we’re making (patches, tins, etc.).

We’ve been doing our best to remain patient with them during this difficult year while still maintaining our original timeline. For our part, we’ve worked very hard on our end to meet every deadline and make our schedule and expectations as clear as possible.

However, a number of mistakes were made by them during the proofing process that required multiple rounds of corrections to be sent to us for approval, which delayed production. Making matters worse, the latest mistakes were introduced during the final print run, which means that in order to fix the errors, we’ll have no choice but to completely reprint the cards. Doing so will bump shipping into late January, or for some folks early February.

This situation has put us in a very difficult spot, as we originally fully intended for these decks to be delivered by the holidays. Back in May, we were assured by our printer that this would be the case, even taking COVID into account. But this is no longer possible without significant concessions, and we would much rather take a bit longer to deliver you the beautiful deck that we promised, rather than compromise the quality to ensure a faster delivery date. 

That being said, we understand that this delay is still frustrating, and we extend our sincere apologies to everyone for whom this has been an inconvenience. We know many of you were planning to give these cards as gifts, and for you, we’ll be releasing a printable Botanica holiday card to let your loved ones know that something special is on the way just for them!

Here's a photo illustrating one of the problems we’ve faced with the initial print run. As you can see, the matte grayish-black of the printed cards is nowhere near the full, rich black of the original glossy proofs, and a lot of the color of Kevin's illustrations are lost in the matte varnish.

That being said, we're making a one-of-a-kind project, which means that this is occasionally new territory for our printers! There are communication errors that happen when working across continents, time zones, and languages on something that no one has ever made before.

What's key to us, though, is that when our printer gets it right, they really nail it! We're incredibly happy with the approved items thus far – it's just a matter of ironing out the errors to match our high standards. We never fully anticipated the difficulties we would face trying to manage a campaign of this scale during a global pandemic, and it’s been a learning experience for us.

In the meantime, we want to thank all of you for your patience and support, and your incredible help in making Kevin’s dream come to fruition. This tumultuous year may have slowed us down, but we’re still going to get there!

Botanically yours,
Maëlle, Josh and Kevin

Printing is Nigh!
over 4 years ago – Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 01:02:51 AM

Hello Herbalists!

BOTANICA continues to grow wild and free. Every day we have new proofs coming in and new special items on the presses. Our altar cloths are printed, our pins and boxes are approved, and our printer's production techniques are making Kevin's paintings look so beautiful on cardstock. We keep thinking we've reached our maximum level of excitement about this project, and then we get another proof or sample in the mail and it spikes higher than before. We're so happy to be able to share some with you!

Here are some sneak peeks at a few of the treasures-in-progress that have got us so excited.

As far as the schedule goes, we've had some small setbacks. I suppose this was unavoidable, and our plan to fulfill everything in time for the holidays may never have been realistic once this campaign exploded so unexpectedly, and we added a couple thousand stretch goals.  A few of the proofs that have come in have had some minor production issues, as it probably inevitable when you're making such a ridiculous amount of beautiful stuff, and are as finicky about design and presentation as we are. We're making a handful of adjustments to get everything just right, which will bump our production schedule a bit and probably put fulfillment into very early next year.

We're very sorry to miss delivery in time for the holidays, for any of you who were planning on giving these as gifts. We can at the very least send some great photos of our production samples, so you can show the receiver the beautiful tarot decks you'll be soon bestowing upon them. In fact, we're planning to produce a holiday card that you can print at home and hand to gift recipients, to show them what's on the way. Watch this space for more info on that

TLDF: Slight delays but we're getting there! We're so grateful for all your support and patience.

Before we let you go -- we'd like to alert you to some new sorcery in the offing.

Last year, we Kickstarted one of our grandest and maddest experiments yet: DRACULA: The Evidence is an interactive experience that refracts the original novel into a research file of ephemera assembled by the characters themselves. It's the entire text of Dracula, presented as a gorgeously designed and curated briefcase full of maps, letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, telegrams, and even a playable phonograph record.
 

Now we're back to make this crazy project even crazier. We'e excited to bring you DRACULA: The Evidence as an illustrious postmodern art book, using the artifacts from the box set to illustrate Stoker’s magnum opus. We've used the artwork, handwriting, typesetting and photography from our box set to illuminate a new edition of Dracula that's different from any edition that's come before.

Anyway - thought you all might dig this thing as much as we do, so we figured we'd give you a heads up! The campaign is exploding almost to the degree BOTANICA did, and it's so encouraging to see how many fine friends are eager to make this kind of magic with us.

Take care, pals! Stay tuned for more info in the weeks and months to come, and let us know if you have any questions, concerns, or gardening tips.

Florally yours,
Josh, Maëlle and Kevin